


Isolation is King

by Rhianona



Series: au-bingo [4]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, au_bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-05
Updated: 2011-03-05
Packaged: 2017-10-16 03:11:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhianona/pseuds/Rhianona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Methos wants safety and the most isolationist country in the world can provide that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Isolation is King

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the au-bingo prompt: Alternate History: Major Historical Event Change
> 
> I opted for a two-part historical event change: the Allies lost the Great War and the US became super isolationist instead of getting involved in the war.

“You want to go to America. And how do you think that’ll happen?” Marie asked, the skepticism alive and well in her voice.

Methos shrugged. “I can get to Canada easily enough and then it’s just a matter of slipping across the border.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Good one, Adam. You had me going there for a while.” She gathered up her notes and the books she had come to retrieve and waved a friendly goodbye before traipsing out of the Watcher-run library. He smiled and ducked his head to return to his own work.

The Watchers had him tracking down his movements in the eighteenth century, though they, of course, had no idea he was anyone _but_ Adam Pierson, mild-mannered and innocuous graduate student attending the Sorbonne. Currently, he spent his day amused by all that he’d managed to get up to in his past. It was odd; he knew he had lived through and experienced the events detailed in the journals taking space on his desk, but he hadn’t seen the thread that ran through it all and now appeared so clear. He had been a true product of his time.

Despite his busy appearance, his mind was most definitely not occupied with his past adventures; Marie may have believed he had joked about traveling to America but he had already begun to plan. As he had suggested to Marie, he could easily get to Canada; he could even get the Watchers’ to pay for it, simply be suggesting evidence that Methos had lived there for a while (he had and what a delightful time he had spent).

Getting inside the United States was a different story. The strong isolationist policy first implemented at the beginning of the Great War had yet to dissipate, with the borders patrolled heavily and a stingy immigration policy. Obtaining even a temporary visa required a strict background check and a willingness to wait _years_ before approval possibly came. And once inside the country, the foreigner had to account for his every move.

Scary place, that America.

But also safe: Immortals barely played the Game in that country. Few of his kind had already lived there when the War had begun and afterwards, travel to and from had become nigh impossible, which kept the Immortal population low. The Watchers that lived there reported that while several of their charges kept up their sword practice, indulging in a spot of head hunting seemed a thing of the past. Perhaps, they theorized, the Immortals didn’t want to risk accidentally exposing their kind since hiding who and what they were was just so difficult in America.

Methos wanted the safety living there would provide. Europe had grown even more crowded since the Axis powers had forced peace on the Allies; Paris in particular had had a sudden influx of Immortals in recent years and he had no desire to lose his head. In America the Immortals might have ceased playing the Game but their European (and African, Asian, and Arabic) counterparts had not. So he’d begun to practice an American accent (made more difficult by the lack of exemplars from which he could choose) and come up with a background that could pass muster in the somewhat paranoid country.

He didn’t want to fail in his venture, but he also knew failure didn’t spell complete defeat for him: as long as he kept his head, he couldn’t die and the Americans tended to simply dump the bodies of those they shot trying to cross their borders. As long as he wasn’t found reviving, he had a perfect means of escape from his current life.

Everything else paled in comparison.


End file.
